GAME BYTES: More about the ‘Mass Effect’ ending

By Phil OwenSpecial to Tusk

Friday

Mar 30, 2012 at 12:01 AM

I was just about ready to move on from “Mass Effect 3” (as if I ever could), but then something curious happened this week. I had some conversations with folks who were just then finishing the game, and they didn’t seem to have a problem with it. But it’s not just that. They also seemed angry that people had been telling them for weeks how bad the ending was. In short, there is now a backlash to the backlash against the game’s ending.

(Editor’s note: This column contains spoilers for “Mass Effect 3.”)

I was just about ready to move on from “Mass Effect 3” (as if I ever could), but then something curious happened this week. I had some conversations with folks who were just then finishing the game, and they didn’t seem to have a problem with it.But it’s not just that. They also seemed angry that people had been telling them for weeks how bad the ending was. In short, there is now a backlash to the backlash against the game’s ending.So I feel like I must, for the benefit of these annoying people, explain in detail what is wrong with the ending. So here goes.For those who haven’t played the game but are reading anyway, I’ll provide some setup. The whole story of “Mass Effect” is about the fight between a race of sentient machines built from organic matter, trying to continue a cycle they’ve perpetuated for millions of years. Namely, every so often they come into the galaxy and wipe out all the spacefaring races, and then retreat back to the space between galaxies. The first two games in the series were about trying to get people to believe that they were coming, and this new one is about them finally arriving and waging war on all the different species.In order to fight these machines, the Reapers, everyone is working together to build an ancient machine called the Crucible that has the potential to do... something, when combined with a giant space station called the Citadel.Meanwhile, a human military organization called Cerberus is convinced that they can use the Crucible to take control of the Reapers. And that’s where the problems begin. You’ve been fighting the whole game against Cerberus in addition to the Reapers, and in the end you have to kill Cerberus’ leader (or convince him to kill himself) because you discover that he was actually under the control of the Reapers the whole timeAt least that’s what an artificial intelligence that controls the Reapers, known as the Catalyst, tells you. And yet Cerberus had conducted research that would allow them to control Reaper ground forces, which goes against Reaper interests, obviously, and in the end one of the things you actually can do with the Crucible is take control of the Reapers. Why would the Reapers convince Cerberus it could do something to harm the Reapers, something it actually could do?That’s just one of three options you’re presented, but let’s not worry about the others here. The next big problem is in the reasoning the Catalyst presents for the Reapers’ existence. It says that the Reapers exist to prevent organic life from creating synthetic life that will ultimately and inevitably destroy all organics. This is presented as an absolute truth by the game, as the Catalyst is a god figure. This goes against, though, what the rest of the game preaches, as I managed to broker a peace between one race and the sentient machines they had created. Those machines, by the way, were decidedly non-aggressive.My problem here is that I simply don’t buy into this figure’s wisdom. I don’t believe that he really has all the answers. Really, there’s no reason to believe one of such limited vision at all.Plus, the series has never been about, thematically, the conflict between machines and people. In truth, these games are about tolerance and learning to get along with other people despite their differences. Within that theme, synthetic life is presented as just another group of people to get along with.And then you have a coherence problem. The end simply doesn’t make sense. After you unleash the power of the Crucible, your ship is seen racing away and crash-landing on another Earth-like planet ... but why? Immediately before that, it was right in the middle of the battle for Earth! Why did it leave? And why were my squadmates from the ground on Earth in the ship? Ugh.I don’t really have space to go into this anymore, so I’ll stop now. These reasons should be enough to dislike the ending of “Mass Effect 3,” but in case they aren’t, all you have to do is think a little bit more about it to come up with many others. It’s not that hard, I promise. n

Phil Owen is a local video game critic.

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